THE BOOK--Playing The Percentages In Baseball

Dottie: Lay off the high ones!
Kit: I like the high ones!
Dottie: Mule!
Kit: Nag!

I assume this is backed by pitch f/x data, is it not?

I have no idea. It is backed by me watching thousands of games.  What is it that you want “backed?” I can’t provide any evidence whether they “look good or not.” However, if you give me a number that would constitute “hard time laying off” (such as batters swing at 60% of them) and we use anything from 6 inches above the belt to the shoulders as “high fastball out of the zone,” I can guarantee you, without looking at pitch f/x data, that the percentage of those pitches swung at is less than half (and probably 25%) of that number.

IOW, let’s say that batters swing at 15% of all fastballs in that area (6 inches above the belt to their shoulders.  You can’t say, “that’s a hard pitch to lay off,” when 85% of the time batters lay off that pitch, unless you are on some sort of medication.

I would also be willing to bet that the percentage of balls swung at from the ground to 6 inches below the knees is higher than the percentage of balls swung at from 6 inches above the belt to the shoulders.  Any takers?

MGL,

If you’ve never been in the batter’s box, how exactly is it you would know that high pitches don’t look good?

Hitters are more likely to hit mistake pitches left up in the zone for extra bases as compared to breaking balls in the dirt. Do you really think there’s not something to this?

"If you’ve never been in the batter’s box, how exactly is it you would know that high pitches don’t look good?”

It depends on your definition of “look good” I suppose.  I am assuming that when you say a certain pitch “looks good” as an explanation for why batters swing at them, that batters have to swing at them more than 10 or 15% of the time, don’t they?

Obviously WHEN they swing at the pitch, it “looks good” I suppose.

How do you know I’ve ever been in a batter’s box?  I once walked right across on and stopped right in the middle!

“Hitters are more likely to hit mistake pitches left up in the zone for extra bases as compared to breaking balls in the dirt.”

What has that got to do with what I said?

I would also be willing to bet that the percentage of balls swung at from the ground to 6 inches below the knees is higher than the percentage of balls swung at from 6 inches above the belt to the shoulders.  Any takers?

I had the use the pitchf/x defined top and bottom of the zone.  I went from 6 inches below the bottom to the ground as the ‘bot’ zone and from 6 inches above the zone to 5.75 feet (estimate of shoulders) as the ‘top’ zone.  I also limited it to pitches that were horizontally in the zone.

Here are the swing rates by count

0&1 top—0.195
0&1 bot—0.197

1&2 top—0.320
1&2 bot—0.337

0&2 top—0.270
0&2 bot—0.302

The differences are not large, but MGL is right in these pitchers’ counts batters swing more at low pitches than high.

Great stuff Dave!  Thanks.  Can you give us the numbers at the other counts?

0&0 top—0.098
0&0 bot—0.095

0&1 top—0.195
0&1 bot—0.197

0&2 top—0.270
0&2 bot—0.302

1&0 top—0.142
1&0 bot—0.143

1&1 top—0.220
1&1 bot—0.220

1&2 top—0.320
1&2 bot—0.337

2&0 top—0.117
2&0 bot—0.124

2&1 top—0.230
2&1 bot—0.220

2&2 top—0.341
2&2 bot—0.373

3&0 top—0.021
3&0 bot—0.014

3&2 top—0.372
3&2 bot—0.303

I put the counts were the relationship flips in bold.

I know we talked about this before, but it is INCREDIBLE how often batters swing at balls out of the zone on a 3-2 count!  Can that be the biggest single mistake that players make in baseball?  Is there a team (STL, OAK, BOS) that specifically tells their batters to STOP swinging so much at 3-2 counts?  You would think there should be.  I have had this discussion (about the 3-2 count) with several FO people in STL over the last few years.  It would be nice to estimate how often batters should swing at the various 3-2 pitches and then figure out how many runs it costs the average team per season…

One more thing, Dave.  Are those all pitches?  I was talking about high fastballs and low off-speed pitches.  You don’t really expect batters to swing at high breaking pitches out of the zone and low fastballs out of the zone.

Oh yeah, that was all pitches.  Here are just high fastballs and low breaking and off-speed.

0&0 top—0.120
0&0 bot—0.141

0&1 top—0.231
0&1 bot—0.231

0&2 top—0.276
0&2 bot—0.320

1&0 top—0.170
1&0 bot—0.202

1&1 top—0.267
1&1 bot—0.270

1&2 top—0.339
1&2 bot—0.361

2&0 top—0.134
2&0 bot—0.199

2&1 top—0.269
2&1 bot—0.292

2&2 top—0.379
2&2 bot—0.405

3&0 top—0.021
3&0 bot—0.040

3&1 top—0.180
3&1 bot—0.267

3&2 top—0.410
3&2 bot—0.397

Wow, I was dead wrong on that one.

Dan, this is one of those things that there really isn’t any right or wrong on.  It depends on your definition of all these “words” like “hard to lay off” and “likes the pitch” and “looks good.” Those are all subjective things.  Plus, as I said above, you can say that any terrible pitch that a player swings at, “looks good” to him (otherwise he would not have swung at it).

Plus, I arbitrarily defined a “high strike out of the zone” as 6 inches out of the zone (which is like 9 inches above the belt I think) to the shoulders and a low one as 6 inches below the zone to the ground (can’t get any lower than the ground I guess since I don’t think pitch f/x tracks how far in front of the plate a pitch bounces).

Basically it just has always annoyed me when batters swing at a really high pitch (usually when they are behind in the count) and an announcer invariably says, “That is such a tough pitch to lay off of,” clearly implying that ALL or at least MOST high fastballs look like they are strikes to the batter.  If that were the case, then batters would swing at them at least 50 or 60% of the time and pitchers would throw them a lot more often, and clearly that isn’t the case. 

I also knew, without looking at pitch f/x data - and anyone who watches a lot of games would know the same thing - that batters will swing at low breaking pitches when behind in the count at least as often as those high fastballs.  So it would stand to reason that you could say the same thing about those breaking pitches - “They must look so good to the batter,” and “they are tough to lay off of.” I guess ANY pitch is tough to lay off of when you are 1-2!  At least for SOME batters.

Also from watching games and without pitch f/x data, I can say without a shadow of a doubt that number or percentage of low breaking pitches thrown when the batter is behind in the count is MUCH higher than the number of high fastballs thrown.  The reason for that is that most pitchers don’t want to throw high fastballs even when ahead in the count, unless they can throw them REALLY high, just in case they make a mistake, and if they throw them really high, almost no one is going to swing at them, plus the fact that if they throw too many (more than the occasional) high fastball in those counts batters will start to look for that pitch and lay off of it.  And I can say that it is a LOT harder to lay off of a low breaking pitch even when you know it is coming than a high fastball (when you know that it is coming).

If you have played ball you would have known exactly what they are talking about.

Some high fastballs are very tough to not swing at for many hitters.
Its right there for the batter to see.
Many hitters are fastball hitters and its right there infront of you. Especially in big spots or with 2 strike counts people get a little trigger happy and want to crush the high fastball.

Saying some high fastballs are tough to layoff doesn’t mean they are saying pitches in the dirt don’t work.
I see no reason to bash it.

My bet is the same guys that don’t lay off high fastballs, also don’t lay off breaking stuff in the dirt. *grin*

Cameron, did you read the whole thread?  Especially #11.  As you can see, in all counts other than 3-2 (and it is close on 3-2), batters swing at MORE low off-speed pitches than high fastballs.

So anything you say about the high fastball (at least how I define it) you can say even more about the low-off speed pitch (again, as I define it).

Do, are you comfortable with an announcer, when a batter swings at a 1-2 curveball in the dirt, saying, “Wow, that pitch is so hard to lay off, especially when behind in the count. It looks so good to the batter!”

If you are not comfortable with that then you can’t be comfortable with them saying that about the high fastball.

You are agreeing with someone for the same reason that they are making the assertion.  How is that supposed to convince anyone of your position, when we pretty much proved that the logic surrounding their assertion is wrong?  You are simply thinking and speaking like the announcers.  And that makes you illogical.  That is not surprising since the announcers are making their assertion based on “non-evidence based” irrational thinking processes and experience from playing (at least their flawed recollection of that experience).  You are doing the exact same thing.  I’m pretty sure that if we asked any ex or current baseball player, 99% of them would say and think the same thing.

What thing is that?  That high fastballs especially when behind in the count, typically look good and are hard to lay off of.  That is not true of the low off-speed pitch (that they look good and are hard to lay off of).  No problem with that characterization, right?

The problem is that unfortunately the data do not come close to supporting that assertion!  We KNOW that not only are both pitches equally hard to lay off of in any count, but that the low pitches are harder to lay off of in almost any count.

I suppose you can say that the high pitches still “look good” and that the low pitches don’t, but then you have to tell us by what mechanism do batters swing more often at the low ones when they don’t “look as good?”

You are trying to disprove the high pitch being tough to lay off of by saying a different pitch is arguably tougher to lay off of. That isn’t sound logic. It doesn’t change the FACT that many batters have a hard time not swinging at high fastballs.

Wow, you must have been sleeping for a really long time. Surely I must have opined about something more recently that also defies logic!

IMO, this stems from people’s experience in youth baseball. I feel very confident as a former HS, junior high, Legion, Jr Legion, 10u travel (current) coach that young players do find it tremendously difficult (in general) to lay off the high pitches ... pitches that would be between their shoulder and chin height.

It’s also an incredibly difficult pitch to hit well given swing path.

It’s why coaches say “nothing above your hands.